THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 5, 2018
11
MOVIES
1
NOW PLAYING
Annihilation
In this numbingly ludicrous science- ction drama,
written and directed by Alex Garland, a talented
cast o actors play undeveloped characters deliv-
ering leaden dialogue in a haphazard story that's
lmed with a bland slickness. Natalie Portman
stars as Lena, a medical-school professor and for-
mer Army o cer whose husband, Kane (Oscar
Isaac), a soldier reported dead, turns up gravely ill.
En route to a hospital, they are both spirited to a
top-secret military facility where Lena learns that
Kane penetrated "the Shimmer," a strange rainbow
curtain that surrounds a large seaside nature pre-
serve, and she soon joins four other o cers (Jen-
nifer Jason Leigh, Tessa Thompson, Gina Rodri-
guez, and Tuva Novotny) on a mission to explore
its mysteries. It turns out that it involves aliens and
some heavy-duty gene splicing; the ve women con-
front some conveniently contrived personal issues
while facing attack from a random batch o mon-
sters. Near the end o the lm, however, a few el-
ements o design, such as crystalline trees, reveal
some inspiration, and a grand con agration sug-
gests the proximity o the ridiculous to the sub-
lime.---Richard Brody (In wide release.)
Black Panther
Nothing in Ryan Coogler's previous features,
"Fruitvale Station" (2013) and "Creed" (2015),
prepared us for the scale o his latest enterprise.
Each o those movies probed the experience o
a single African-American in detail, and in situ,
close to home, whereas the new story summons a
fresh homeland altogether---the ctional African
nation o Wakanda, which is rich in resources and
mightily skilled at concealing them from the out-
side world. The throne has passed to a young mon-
arch, T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman), who, among
his other virtues, is a superhero, donning a special
suit to fend o those who threaten his country's
peace. They include an arms dealer (Andy Serkis)
who steals vibranium, the magical ore that is mined
in Wakanda, and a warrior known as Killmonger
(Michael B. Jordan), who deems himsel more t
to rule than T'Challa. The whole saga marks a star-
tling departure for the house o Marvel, not just in
the actors o color who throng the screen but also
in the compound o comic-book extravagance and
utopian politics. For the most part, the mixture
works. With Angela Bassett, Lupita Nyong'o, For-
est Whitaker, and, as the king's younger sister, the
spirited Letitia Wright.---Anthony Lane (Reviewed
in our issue of 2/26/18.) (In wide release.)
Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun?
Travis Wilkerson's extraordinary rst-person doc-
umentary---he directed, wrote, lmed, edited, nar-
rated, recorded the sound, and even performed the
score---is a bitterly revelatory work o history, a
monstrous family story, and an un inching view
o current politics. He visits his mother's home
town o Dothan, Alabama, to investigate an ugly
bit o family lore: in 1946, his great-grandfather,
S. E. Branch, a grocer, who was white, killed a black
man, Bill Spann, in the store, and faced no charges.
Wilkerson's mother and one o his aunts o er remi-
niscences---awful ones---about Branch; another aunt,
a pro-Confederacy activist, o ers excuses. He speaks
with Ed Vaughn, a local civil-rights activist and re-
tired politician, about the region's legacy o racism;
he travels to nearby Abbeville, the site o the rape
o Recy Taylor, a black woman, by six white men,
in 1944, and traces Rosa Parks's work at the time to
seek justice for her. Seeking Spann's grave, Wilker-
son nds himsel in Ku Klux Klan territory, where
he meets a black o cial working in fear and experi-
ences threats rst hand. As disclosures o past and
present horrors mount, Wilkerson tints and super-
imposes images, suggesting their inadequacy to the
agonies, both historical and intimate, o enforced
silences and erased lives.---R.B. (In limited release.)
Early Man
Nick Park's new exercise in stop-motion animation---
the same technique that gave quivering and mallea-
ble life to Wallace and Gromit---yanks us back to the
prehistoric age and thus, inevitably, to the dawn o
soccer. A tranquil tribe, whose sylvan way o life is
interrupted by a gang o marauders (supposedly
more advanced, and without doubt more heavily ar-
mored), competes with them on the playing eld for
the right to inhabit the precious forest. The leader o
the underdogs is Dug (voiced by Eddie Redmayne),
and his opposition is Lord Nooth (Tom Hiddleston),
who, for reasons best known to himself, sounds
French. The gags, as ever, are strewn with generos-
ity, and, since we are watching the work o Aardman
Animations, the minutiae are handled with delecta-
ble care. The anachronisms, too, are o the best sort---
that is to say, the most honestly unabashed. By the
lofty standards that Park has set for himself, how-
ever, and which have been met time and again in his
shorter lms, the new adventure feels stretched out
and lacking in comic compression; where, you won-
der, is Gromit when we need him? With the voices
o Maisie Williams, Miriam Margolyes, and Timo-
thy Spall.---A.L. (2/26/18) (In wide release.)
The 15:17 to Paris
With wide-eyed wonder, Clint Eastwood tells the
real-life story o three young American men who, in
2015, thwarted a terrorist attack aboard a train bound
for Paris. His admiration and astonishment are em-
bodied in his gonzo casting o the three men---Spen-
cer Stone, Anthony Sadler, and Alek Skarlatos---as
themselves. (All rst-time actors, they perform with
lively earnestness.) The attack takes only about ten
minutes o screen time; most o the lm traces their
friendship, starting in middle school, in Sacramento,
in 2005, when the three boys, disdained and angry,
bond---and become obsessed with playing war. After
some oundering, Spencer and Alek enter military
service; Anthony goes to college. The three young
men take a jaunty summer trip through Europe and,
as i they've been training for it, they make history.
Eastwood's lm (written by Dorothy Blyskal) only
masquerades as a drama; it's a thesis about the traits
that forge the men's heroism. There's also a bit o
politics---a view o social trends that foster or frus-
trate the men's best qualities---but it hardly gures
into Eastwood's briskly ecstatic vision o the lives
o secular saints.---R.B. (In wide release.)
Preview: March 8 to 9, 10-6; March 10, 12-5; March 12, 10-6
104 East 25th St, New York, NY 10010 • tel 212 254 4710 • SWANNGALLERIES.COM
Edward Hopper, House by a River (detail), etching, 1919. Estimate $100,000 to $150,000.
19th & 20th Century Prints & Drawings
March 13
Todd Weyman • tweyman@swanngalleries.com